Manchester City vs Inter: Champions League Final Match Preview and Prediction
Match Preview
Manchester City vs Inter will be played in Istanbul on Saturday night. Man City are one game away from completing a historic treble, after beating city rivals Manchester United in FA Cup final, City already have a domestic double under their belt.
City will look to win their first-ever Champions League trophy as they fell short in 2021 against Thomas Tuchel’s Chelsea.
Pep Guardiola is familiar with this stage, as he has already won the UCL with Barcelona in 2009 and 2011 beating Sir Alex Ferguson’s Man United and will look to win his third this Saturday.
City were unstoppable in the final phase of the season, as they won the Premier League with 12 straight wins. City went through Leipzig, Bayern and Madrid to reach the Final.
Whereas, Simone Inzaghi’s Inter are underdogs in this tie. They have not won the Champions League since 2010.
However, this season Inter were in the group of death with Bayern Munich and FC Barcelona. Everyone thought Inter will not qualify for the next round. But, they finished second in the group sending Barcelona to the Europa League.
In Serie A though their form was not good, they lost the title to Napoli. But, they ended their season with 11 wins in 12 matches in all competitions including a Coppa Italia final win over Fiorentina.
Guardiola will look to take revenge as Mourinho’s Inter did beat his Barcelona in 2010 Semi-final. After finishing second in the group behind Bayern, Inter went through Porto, Benfica and city rivals AC Milan to reach the final.
Manchester City vs Inter: Key players, predicted line-ups
Manchester City: Erling Haaland
Erling Haaland has scored 12 goals this season in the Champions League. This puts him level with Ruud van Nistelrooy in 2002-03, for most goals in a single season for an English club. If he scores against, Inter he will move clear.
He can become the first Norwegian to score a goal in UCL Final since Ole Gunnar Solksjaer in 1999.
Inter: Lautaro Martinez
Lautaro is the key player for this Inter side, he ended the season with 11 goals in his final 13 appearances. Martinez also won the World Cup with Argentina in December. Either Lautaro, or Julian Alvarez could become the 10th player to win the World Cup and the Champions League.
The Argentine only has three goals in the competition so far. But with City playing a high line he can hold-up the ball pretty nicely which will create space for Inter players.
Lautaro has scored a total of 28 goals this season in all competitions for Inter.
Manchester City vs Inter: Predicted Line-up
Man City (3-2-2-3): Ederson, Walker, Dias, Akanji, Stones, Rodri, B Silva, De Bruyne, Gundogan, Grealish, Haaland.
Inter (3-5-2): Onana, Darmian, Acerbi, Bastoni, Dumfries, Barella, Calhanoglu, Brozovic, Dimarco, Dzeko, Martinez.
Prediction
Everything is predicting that Man City will win this game. They are in unstoppable form right now. The only way Inter can compete is if City are not at their best. However, the key battle also lies in Midfield. It will be mesmerizing to watch if Barella, Calhanoglu and Brozovic can dominate Rodri, De Bruyne and Gundogan.
Manchester City 3-1 Inter.
